Archive for January 2nd, 2010

Cranks like me have been Cassandraing for years that cellphones are brain-frying devices. The last time I wrote about this, a couple years ago for the now-departed Never In Our Names, doctors were beginning to get nervous about the blooming of brain tumors caused by chronic cellphone use. Today, according to the New York Times, some large health organizations are moving towards acknowledging cellphones as tumor-producers, and legislators from Maine to San Francisco are considering the same sort of warning labels on cellphones as are emblazoned on cigarettes.

Maine Representative Andrea Boland introduced last October a bill that would require cellphone manufacturers to place warnings on their devices; her bill will be debated in the state legislature this month. Out in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to introduce a measure that would force cellphones to display the amount of radiation they produce. “The mayor believes that cellphone safety is the next frontier,” says Brian Purchia, a Newsom spokespeak.

The World Health Organization decreed in 2005 that studies had found “no convincing evidence of an increased cancer risk.” But a more extensive study, encompassing thirteen different countries and overseen by WHO, is expected to conclude that a “significantly increased risk” of some brain tumors is “related to use of mobile phones for a period of ten years or more.”

An estimated 276. 6 million Americans currently melt their minds with cellphones.